Growing polarization in the American Congress is closely related to rising income inequality. Yet there has been no corresponding polarization of the U.S. electorate, and across advanced democracies, mass polarization is negatively related to income inequality. To explain this puzzle, we propose a comparative political economy model of mass polarization in which the same institutional factors t...

This article reviews contemporary elite theory in political sociology and political science. The concept of ‘elites’ is based on the notion that every society holds a ruling minority, a group that controls and disputes the most important power sources. Not only do elites dispute power (reaching different levels of conflict and violence), but new elites also enter the game through different mech...

A common conclusion of studies on Central America’s democracies and political economy is that the weakness of institutions and the strength of elites are a main reason for the region’s problems. Recently, a set of studies have attempted to scrutinize these elites in detail, focussing on their strategies and resources. The purpose of this article is to reflect upon what these studies can tell us...

The relationship between militarization and state formation in the West has been the subject of considerable scholarship,1 and there is thus some temptation to simply transfer concepts and arguments from that domain to the study of Third World militarization. Yet state formation dynamics in the two contexts were and are quite different, with important implications for the nature of national sec...